I am runnning the following play:

- name: Retrieve FW Files
    tags: fw_ssh, retrieve_fw_vars
    ansible.builtin.set_fact: 
      fw_tstg_url: "{{ lookup('ansible.builtin.ini', 'fw_test_image_download_url', section='pytest', file='~/latestRelease.ini', interpolation=false) }}"

The issue is, the fw_test_image_download_url key's value contains a % in its url (e.g. site?date=2024-12-19T16%3A56Z). As seen above, interpolation is set to false and I attempted to also escape the % character but always receive the below error:

TASK [Retrieve FW Files] ****************************************************************************************************************************************
fatal: [parshall-pi]: FAILED! => {"msg": "An unhandled exception occurred while running the lookup plugin 'ansible.builtin.ini'. Error was a <class 'configparser.InterpolationSyntaxError'>, original message: '%' must be followed by '%' or '(', found: '%3A21%3A02Z&se=2025-12-20T18%3A21%3A00Z&sr=b&sp=r&sig=d0AMoAny8EVHasu4KARQeYy2KEx7XaS8Vhd39GdFBv8%3D'. '%' must be followed by '%' or '(', found: '%3A21%3A02Z&se=2025-12-20T18%3A21%3A00Z&sr=b&sp=r&sig=d0AMoAny8EVHasu4KARQeYy2KEx7XaS8Vhd39GdFBv8%3D'"}

I am runnning the following play:

- name: Retrieve FW Files
    tags: fw_ssh, retrieve_fw_vars
    ansible.builtin.set_fact: 
      fw_tstg_url: "{{ lookup('ansible.builtin.ini', 'fw_test_image_download_url', section='pytest', file='~/latestRelease.ini', interpolation=false) }}"

The issue is, the fw_test_image_download_url key's value contains a % in its url (e.g. site?date=2024-12-19T16%3A56Z). As seen above, interpolation is set to false and I attempted to also escape the % character but always receive the below error:

TASK [Retrieve FW Files] ****************************************************************************************************************************************
fatal: [parshall-pi]: FAILED! => {"msg": "An unhandled exception occurred while running the lookup plugin 'ansible.builtin.ini'. Error was a <class 'configparser.InterpolationSyntaxError'>, original message: '%' must be followed by '%' or '(', found: '%3A21%3A02Z&se=2025-12-20T18%3A21%3A00Z&sr=b&sp=r&sig=d0AMoAny8EVHasu4KARQeYy2KEx7XaS8Vhd39GdFBv8%3D'. '%' must be followed by '%' or '(', found: '%3A21%3A02Z&se=2025-12-20T18%3A21%3A00Z&sr=b&sp=r&sig=d0AMoAny8EVHasu4KARQeYy2KEx7XaS8Vhd39GdFBv8%3D'"}

• ansible
• jinja2

• 1 Looks like this may be the issue: github/ansible/ansible/issues/83755 ansible --version ansible [core 2.14.16] – Nemesis Commented 20 hours ago

2 Answers 2

Figured it out.

I am using parrot os which restricts the ansible version to 2.16 and has this bug:
github/ansible/ansible/issues/83755

To get around this I created a venv environment and installed ansible there. After doing that I no longer receive the above error.

Meanwhile waiting for an resolution of Ansible Issue #83755 - "ansible.builtin.ini lookup doesn't take % chars in value as a literal" in your ParrotOS, an other option could be to use filters instead, since one has to read and interpret the file and content anyway. See also from_ini filter – Converts INI text input into a dictionary.

For an INI-style file url.ini with content of

[pytest]
url = example/page?date=2024-12-19T16%3A56Z

a minimal example playbook

---
- hosts: localhost
  become: false
  gather_facts: false

  tasks:

    - debug:
        msg: "{{ lookup('ansible.builtin.ini', 'url', section='pytest', file='url.ini', interpolation=false) }}"
      ignore_errors: true

    - slurp:
        src: url.ini
      register: fromfile

    - debug:
        msg: "{{ (fromfile.content | b64decode | community.general.from_ini).pytest.url }}"

will result into an output of

TASK [debug] ***************************************************************************************************************************************
fatal: [localhost]: FAILED! =>
  msg: 'An unhandled exception occurred while running the lookup plugin ''ansible.builtin.ini''. Error was a <class ''configparser.InterpolationSyntaxError''>, original message: ''%'' must be followed by ''%'' or ''('', found: ''%3A56Z''. ''%'' must be followed by ''%'' or ''('', found: ''%3A56Z'''
...ignoring

TASK [slurp] ***************************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost]

TASK [debug] ***************************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] =>
  msg: example/page?date=2024-12-19T16%3A56Z

and provide simple access to the requested string.